Al-Qaeda’s threat to North Africa remains high, despite a lack of western media attention

Richard Laurent

On December 7, we analyzed the continued threat posed by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, within the context of an airport attack Algerian authorities claimed to have foiled the week before. At the time we wrote: “Despite the rare victory of the Algerian security forces in heading off this latest threat, Predata continues to show a high likelihood of an AQIM attack within their operational footprint, which includes Algeria, Mali, Mauritania and Niger; we put the probability that AQIM will strike within the next 45 days at 74%.”

The basis for that conclusion was the signal we have built around online chatter — on Wikipedia, YouTube, in the comment sections of major news websites, and elsewhere — related to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. A predictive model applied to that signal has been consistent in showing an elevated (and escalating) likelihood of attack in the days leading up to terrorist operations claimed by AQIM over the last couple of years.

Yesterday, Ansar Dine, AQIM’s local affiliate in Mali, claimed responsibility for three attacks in northern Mali over the past few days; one of the attacks, AQIM and Ansar Dine have claimed, involved a raid on a military base in the town of Talahandaq, resulting in the release of a number of militants being held there. In the wake of previous AQIM attacks, the probability level in our model has dipped. This, for instance, was the case around the attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako: The day before the attack, Predata put the likelihood of a terrorist incident within 45 days at 100%, while the day after the attack, that prediction level dropped to 14%. In more recent weeks, however, our model has continued to show an elevated likelihood of attack even in the wake of major terrorist incidents. Our prediction levels remained elevated after the December 1 foiled airport bomb plot in Algeria, and they remain elevated today, despite the Ansar Dine attacks: We put the likelihood of further AQIM-related terrorist incidents over the next 45 days at 78%.

This prognosis is consistent with the security posture adopted by several governments throughout the region over the last few days. Mali declared a 10-day state of emergency on December 22, while Tunisia this week extended its current state of emergency, in force since the November 25 suicide bombing of a bus carrying members of the presidential security guard, until February 21. Of further interest, Tunisia’s interior minister this week revealed the country’s security forces have foiled 15 terrorist operations since the summer beach attack in Sousse, although he declined to divulge when and where these attacks were to have taken place.

The sustained threat from AQIM also comes at a time of substantial political uncertainty for Algeria, the largest country (by population, surface area, GDP and security capability) in the terrorist group’s area of responsibility. As questions over the health of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, a diminished and increasingly sequestered presence since his 2013 stroke, multiply, reports have begun to circulate of a soft coup by various elements in “le pouvoir,” the diverse group of military, political and business interests that makes up Algeria’s ruling elite.

The Predata signal for Algeria spiked on December 23 following statements by the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN). The FLN secretary-general said major constitutional reforms will be announced next month, including limits to presidential terms, a broadening of the prime minister’s powers, and more rights for opposition parties. The situation, however, remains precarious: Bouteflika has been in power since 1999 and the transition to a new set of political realities will be necessarily fraught, especially as the hydrocarbon-dependent Algerian economy continues to suffer in the face of persistently low oil prices. We put the likelihood of a civil protest in the next 91 days at 31%, but the bigger threat comes from the potential interplay between internal civil and political unrest and the regional security story. Instability in Algeria, whose security forces represent the primary regional bulwark against AQIM, invites an even greater focus on terrorist activity within the region over the months ahead.

richard@predata.com | twitter: @predataofficial | www.predata.com